I would agree with Sojobo that as a literary character, Jesus is exceptionally flat. The depth that you are claiming exists is a theological depth, created by attributing complexities to the character that don't arise from the individual stories. The person of Jesus is certainly theologically complex (member of the Trinity, eternally co-existing and eternally begotten of the Father, etc) but those are theological aspects that largely don't arise out of the gospel texts. They are attributed from other sources. Sojobo is right in insisting that each gospel stand on its own as a literary text.

You are not theologically or literally complex. You are complex or you aren't. With that said, Jesus was forced into really heavy choices and struggled a lot with himself during his journey. Jesus forgave even those that harmed him the most. Even if we take away his divinity and go for a completely atheist point of view, he's really deep and worthy of analysis._________________Welcome to Sinfest, the only place with a 46 pages long thread about sentient toasters

I would agree with Sojobo that as a literary character, Jesus is exceptionally flat. The depth that you are claiming exists is a theological depth, created by attributing complexities to the character that don't arise from the individual stories. The person of Jesus is certainly theologically complex (member of the Trinity, eternally co-existing and eternally begotten of the Father, etc) but those are theological aspects that largely don't arise out of the gospel texts. They are attributed from other sources. Sojobo is right in insisting that each gospel stand on its own as a literary text.

You are not theologically or literally complex. You are complex or you aren't. With that said, Jesus was forced into really heavy choices and struggled a lot with himself during his journey. Jesus forgave even those that harmed him the most. Even if we take away his divinity and go for a completely atheist point of view, he's really deep and worthy of analysis.

One interesting thing I want to point out is the only moment where he ever spoke negatively of someone was King Herod after he beheaded John the Baptist. I believe the words were "...go tell that fox..."

Even Jesus could feel anger and loss.

If anything, I would encourage atheists to approach scripture as equal to Aesop's fables. I loved reading Aesop's fables when I was a kid and I drew a lot of inspiration from them. The bible, understandably, is a more unattractive read at first glance, but when you learn more about the history it gets super interesting. I really love the history about the North and South kingdoms of Israel. It's very interesting history in its context.

Adding: "Tell that fox - A fox is an emblem of slyness, of cunning, and of artful mischief. The word is also used to denote a dissembler. Herod was a wicked man, but the "particular thing" to which Jesus here alludes is not his "vices," but his "cunning, his artifice," in endeavoring to remove him out of his territory. He had endeavored to do it by stratagem - by sending these people who pretended great friendship for his life." -Barnes' notes of the bible

You are not theologically or literally complex. You are complex or you aren't.

There are multiple definitions for complexity. One refers to how well developed a character is in a piece of literature. You certainly can be complex by one definition and not by the other._________________"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others."
- Anne-Sophie Swetchine

Holy Trinity: Jesus occupies a third there. The Almighty occupies another. The meaning of the last one is debatable and quite interesting but I don't feel like discussing it here. Irrelevant.

Jesus is not omnipotent. Also, omnipotence is a plot hole as far as I'm concerned, so please don't use it as an argument.

First of all, I'm not arguing, I'm discussing. I try to never argue, I'm not any good at it.

Second, the underlying premise of Christianity is a plot hole? I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

Third, if God is omnipotent, then the entire process of Jesus supposedly dying on the cross seems to have been basically a cruel farce because, again, God could've achieved the exact same results with a mere thought. God accomplished it via Jesus's ordeal because that was how God wanted to accomplish it.

From that perspective, it would seem that Jesus still wasn't forced into making heavy choices because Jesus, in fact, had no choice at all. He couldn't make things turn out any differently than God wanted them to turn out.

The Bible works fine with God just being really, really powerful. Omnipotence, and specially omniscience, raise quite a LOT of questions.

With that said, a religious man would tell you that the reason God didn't do that is that mankind had damned itself back in Genesis 3:6. It's mankind's darn job to fix the problem._________________Welcome to Sinfest, the only place with a 46 pages long thread about sentient toasters

Plus, of course, one might reasonably venture that God knew what humanity was going to do all along because, again, omniscient. I wasn't aware of any significant variation of Christianity that espoused the notion that there are things that God can't know and things that God can't do.

This is one reason I don't consider myself a Christian. Ultimately, there are only two reasons to believe anything: Because you want to or because the evidence requires you to. IMHO no evidence exists that would require me to believe that the Bible is the word of God, and nothing about the Bible itself makes me want to believe that. I actually don't quite understand why anybody would want to believe that, but I accept that some people do.

However, I'll drop the subject because I just realized I have no clear idea of why I'm discussing it in the first place.